ABOVE: SID VICIOUS WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN
BELOW IS THE POLICE MUGSHOT OF SID VICIOUS AT THE TIME OF ONE OF HIS MANY ARRESTS , BACK IN 1979, IN NEW YORK , USA.
BELOW … IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BIKER BOOTS WHILST PRANCING ABOUT IN PARIS WHILST FILMING A TV DOCUMENTARY .
ABOVE AND BELOW …SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCE AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCES AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
SID VICIOUS PERFORMING SOLO WEARING THESE LEATHER BOOTS ON WHAT WAS HIS LAST LIVE PERFORMANCES AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY , NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 29 1978 … LATER TO BE REPORTED IN THE NME DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978
NME CUTTING DATED 14 OCTOBER 1978 OF SID VICIOUS WEARING THESE BOOTS DURING HIS SOLO GIG AT MAX’S KANSAS CITY GIG … A GREAT RARE CLOSE-UP OF SID’S BOOTS AS WAS LAST WORN BY SID SHORTLY BEFORE HIS ARREST FOR THE MURDER OF HIS GIRLFRIEND NANCY SPUNGEN ON 12 OCTOBER 1978
PURCHASE RECEIPT FOR THE BOOTS … BOUGHT BY ANDY JONES FOR THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT FRASERS AUCTION HOUSE , LONDON, BACK IN 2000
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
CLOSE UP IMAGE OF SID VICIOUS BOOTS
Above are several images of Sid Vicious most treasured leather biker boots , which he can also be seen wearing in this video of him prancing about in Paris , France . in his alleged suicide note ( many believe that this was actually written by his mother Anne Beverley ) he had requested that he be buried with his leather jacket and these leather biker boots … This was never the case as he was cremated and his ashes were secretly thrown over Nancy’s grave . His mother had subsequently kept his personal clothing last worn by him and later these boots were auctioned off in the year 2000 by Alan Parker through Frasers Auctions , London . Bought by Andy Jones of the Crime Through Time Collection and now on permanent display at Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, UK .
Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen on display in and amongst our Punk Rock Collection here at Littledean Jail.
ABOVE IS SID’S ( NOW WELL AGED ) BIKE CHAIN BRACELET ALONG WITH IMAGE OF HIM WEARING THIS . ALSO HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .
Sid Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, later named John Beverley (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), was an English bass guitarist, drummer and vocalist, most famous as a member of the influential punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and notorious for his arrest for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
Vicious joined the Sex Pistols in early 1977, to replace Glen Matlock, who had fallen out of favour with the rest of the group. Due to intravenous drug use, Vicious was hospitalized with hepatitis during the recording of the band’s only studio album Never Mind the Bollocks. Accordingly, his bass is only partially featured on one song from the album. Vicious would later appear as a lead vocalist, performing three cover songs, on the soundtrack to The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, a largely fictionalized documentary about the Sex Pistols, produced by the group’s former manager Malcolm McLaren and directed by Julien Temple.
During the brief and chaotic ascendancy of the Sex Pistols, Vicious met eventual girlfriend and manager Nancy Spungen. Spungen and Vicious entered a destructive codependent relationship based on drug use. This culminated in Spungen’s death from an apparent stab wound while staying in New York City‘s Hotel Chelsea with Vicious. Under suspicion of having committed Spungen’s murder, Vicious was released on bail; he was later arrested again for assaulting Todd Smith, brother of Patti Smith, at a night club, and underwent drug rehabilitation on Rikers Island. In celebration of Vicious’ release from prison, his mother hosted a party for him at his girlfriend’s residence in Greenwich Village, which was attended notably by the Misfits bassist Jerry Only.
Vicious’ mother had been supplying him with drugs and paraphernalia since he was young, and assisted him in procuring heroin late that night. Vicious died in his sleep, having overdosed on the heroin his mother had procured.
Less than four weeks after Vicious’ death, the soundtrack album of The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle was released. Later that year, on 15 December, a compilation of live material recorded during his brief solo career was packaged and released as Sid Sings.
ABOVE IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE AND RARE SIGNED BY BOTH PHOTOGRAPH OF SID AND NANCY TOGETHER .
BELOW IS THE ICONIC AND CONTROVERSIAL ALBUM COVER OF THE SEX PISTOLS …” NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS HERE’S THE SEX PISTOLS ” THIS BEING A FULLY SIGNED BY THE ORIGINAL PISTOLS LINE UP ON A RARE RUSSIAN VERSION OF THE ALBUM .
Nancy Spungen death and Sid Vicious arrest
Sid Vicious mugshot 9 December 1978
On the morning of 12 October 1978, Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Nancy Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, New York. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and appeared to have bled to death. The knife used had been bought by Vicious on 42nd Street and was identical to a “007” flip-knife given to punk rock vocalist Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys by Dee Dee Ramone. According to Dee Dee’s wife at the time, Vera King Ramone, Vicious had bought the knife after seeing Stiv’s. Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder.[He said they had fought that night but gave conflicting versions of what happened next, saying, “I stabbed her, but I never meant to kill her”, then saying that he did not remember and at one point during the argument Spungen had fallen onto the knife
On 22 October, ten days after Spungen’s death, Vicious attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb and was subsequently hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital where he also tried killing himself by jumping from a window as well as shouting “I want to be with my Nancy” or other similar words, but was pulled back by hospital staff. In an interview he gave in November 1978, he said that Nancy’s death was “meant to happen” and that “Nancy always said she’d die before she was 21.” Near the end of the interview, he was asked if he was having fun. In reply, he asked the interviewer if he was kidding, adding that he would like to be “under the ground.” It was also at Bellevue that he met his lawyer James Merberg, who did everything he could to keep Vicious out of jail.
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SID VICIOUS SUICIDE BY OVERDOSE
On the evening of February 1, 1979, a small gathering to celebrate Vicious having made bail was held at the 63 Bank Street, New York apartment of his new girlfriend, Michelle Robinson. Sid and Michelle had started dating in November after Sid was released from Bellevue Hospital the previous October. Vicious was clean, having been on a detoxification methadone program during his time at Rikers Island. At the dinner gathering, however, Sid had some heroin delivered by his friend, English photographer Peter Kodick, against the wishes of Sid’s girlfriend and some other people at the party. It was also during this party that Sid had apparently spent the hours looking towards the future; he had plans for an album he was going to record to get his life and career on track should he be off the hook. Vicious overdosed at midnight, but everyone who was there that night worked together to get him up and walking around in order to revive him. At 3:00 am, Vicious and Michelle Robinson went to bed together. Vicious died in the night and was discovered dead by Anne and Michelle early the next morning.
In his first interview, appearing in the Daily Mirror‘s June 11, 1977 issue, Vicious said “I’ll probably die by the time I reach 25. But I’ll have lived the way I wanted to.”
A few days after Vicious’ cremation, his mother allegedly found a suicide note in the pocket of his jacket:
We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby. Bury me in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots Goodbye.
Since Spungen was Jewish, she was buried in a Jewish cemetery. As Vicious was not Jewish, he could not be buried with her. According to the book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Jerry Only of the Misfits drove Anne and her sister, and two of Sid’s friends to the cemetery where Nancy was buried and Anne scattered Sid’s ashes over Nancy Spungen’s grave. In the same book, it is alleged that the cemetery didn’t want to be associated with Vicious and his inherent negative reputation, and it is speculated that this was of greater importance to them than the above stated reason he and Nancy weren’t able to be buried together.
HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL WE TOUCH UPON AND FEATURE A NUMBER OF CONTROVERSIAL AND HISTORIC ASSASSINATIONS OF SOME OF THE ICONIC FIGUREHEADS THROUGHOUT TIME INCLUDING MARTIN LUTHER KING JR FEATURED HERE BELOW .
ABOVE AND BELOW : ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS BY OUR IN-HOUSE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL …
THIS ALONG WITH A MASS OF TRUE CRIME , MURDERABILIA, AND OTHER ASSOCIATED MEMORABILIA IS ALL HERE ON DISPLAY AS PART OF A HOPEFULLY EDUCATIONAL INSIGHT DURING ONE’S VISIT TO THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HERE AT THE JAIL
MARTIN LUTHER KING ASSASSINATED ON THE BALCONY OUTSIDE HIS ROOM AT THE LORRAINE MOTEL , MEMPHIS USA
MARTIN LUTHER KING IN HIS COFFIN SHORTLY BEFORE FUNERAL
MARTIN LUTHER KING POLICE MUGSHOT AT TIME OF A PREVIOUS ARREST
MARTIN LUTHER KING IN HIS COFFIN SHORTLY BEFORE FUNERAL
Born
Michael King, Jr.
January 15, 1929 Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Martin Luther King is probably the most famous person associated with the civil rights movement. King was active from the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 to 1956 until his murder in April 1968. To many Martin Luther King epitomised what the civil rights campaign was all about and he brought massive international cover to the movement.
Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15th, 1929. The church was very much a part of his life as both his father and grandfather had been Baptist preachers. They themselves were involved in the civil rights movement. By the standards of the time, King came from a reasonably comfortable background and after graduating from college in 1948 he was not sure about which profession to join. He considered a career in medicine and law but rejected both and joined the Baptist Church. He studied at the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. It was while studying here, that King learned about the non-violent methods used by Mahatma Gandhi against the British in India. King became convinced that such methods would be of great value to the civil rights movement.
After leaving Crozer, King got married to Coretta Scott. He became a Baptist pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He was in Montgomery at the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He was appointed the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was created during the boycott and he became a prominent leader of the boycott – even driving some of the black community to work as the buses had been boycotted. King was arrested for starting a boycott (an arrestable offence as a result of an obscure law that was very rarely used) and fined $500 with $500 costs. His house was fire-bombed and others involved with MIA were also intimidated – but by the end of 1956, segregation had been lifted in Montgomery and bus integration had been introduced.
Another result of the boycott was the establishment of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This organisation was committed to the use of non-violence and its motto was “Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed.” Martin Luther King was elected its president. The importance of the SCLC’s involvement was simply because the churches that represented the black population in the South were potent organisations. Now that they had combined their power and influence, this power was multiplied.
Not long after the conclusion of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King wrote ‘Stride Towards Freedom’. This was read by some students at Greensboro, North Carolina and they started the student sit-in of the Woolworth’s lunch counter which had a policy of not serving African-Americans. Though the students were frequently abused and assaulted, they never fought back. The same tactic – a non-violent response to violence – was also used by the Freedom Riders in their campaign to desegregate transport.
Buoyed by this response, King toured the country making speeches and urging more and more people to get involved in the civil rights movement. King had also noted the economic power that the black community had – as was seen in Montgomery. He tried to get communities to use companies/individual shop keepers etc. who were sympathetic to the civil rights campaign but also to boycott those who were not.
King also placed great faith in the power of the vote. Many black Americans in the South still faced enormous problems doing something as basic as registering to vote such was the intimidation they faced. In Mississippi, 42% of the state’s population was black but only 2% registered to vote in the 1960 election. However, more and more did register throughout the South and in 1960, their support (70%) helped to give the Democrat J F Kennedy the narrowest of victories over Richard Nixon.
In 1963, Kennedy proposed his civil rights bill. To persuade Congress to support this bill, King, with other civil rights leaders, organised the legendary March on Washington. Baynard Rustin was given overall control of the march.
The march – officially the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – was a major success. Held on August 28th, 1963, it attracted between 250,000 and 400,000 people. The final speaker was Martin Luther King and it was here that he made his legendary ‘I have a Dream’ speech which was heard throughout the world and did a huge amount to publicise the civil rights movement in America across the world. Congress did accept Kennedy’s civil rights bill and it became the 1964 Civil Rights Act – a far reaching act that many saw as a fitting tribute to the assassinated Kennedy.
King then moved on to a bill that would guarantee the voting rights of the black community in America. This led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
From this time on, King became more and more concerned with the poverty of those in America – both black and white. For whatever reason, King became more radical – or so it seemed to those who distrusted him. He used the word “revolution” in some of his speeches and he voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War. King also became involved in trade union issues.
King had clearly made enemies in his rise to fame. At the most basic level, the KKK did what they could to tarnish his name in the South. However, it was the work done by the FBI under the leadership of J Edgar Hoover that did most damage. Rooms where King stayed during his travels were bugged and recordings of his alleged sexual improprieties were made. The FBI released such details to the press.
On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead by an assassin. His death sparked off riots in many cities and 46 people were killed during these. In March 1969, James Earl Ray was found guilty of King’s murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Many years after starting his sentence, Ray claimed that he was innocent and that he could not have killed King.
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
The Black Panther Party, originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a political organization founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California.
ABOVE AND BELOW : ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS BY OUR IN-HOUSE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL …
ABOVE: AN ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY OUR IN-HOUSE ARTIST DEPICTING HUEY P NEWTON , FOUNDER MEMBER OF THE INFAMOUS & NOTORIOUS BLACK PANTHER MOVEMENT IN 1966 , OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, USA .
ABOVE: AN ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY OUR IN-HOUSE ARTIST, OF BOBBY SEALE, CO-FOUNDER MEMBER OF THE INFAMOUS & NOTORIOUS BLACK PANTHER MOVEMENT IN 1966 , OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, USA .
ABOVE: A SHORT VIDEO ON THE HISTORY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , IT’S OWNER , OR ANY OF IT’S STAFF HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAVE NO AFFILIATION , CONNECTION OR INVOLVEMENT WITH ANY EXTREMIST , POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS WHATSOEVER …… WE SIMPLY EXHIBIT AND TOUCH UPON A GREAT MANY POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE COVER IN THE WAY WE CHOOSE TO DO SO HERE. …. “IT’S ALL HISTORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE”….EVEN IF ON OCCASIONS, SENSITIVE , THOUGHT PROVOKING SUBJECT MATTERS THAT INCITE STRONG DEBATE .
WE WOULD RESPECTFULLY HOPE THAT OUR OWN EXHIBITION INSIGHT IS DEEMED TO BE HISTORICALLY EDUCATIONAL AS WE DO HERE .
PLEASE DO NOTE OUR POLITE WARNINGS IN THAT THIS DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION IS NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY. IT IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN, THOSE EASILY OFFENDED, DISTURBED OR OF A SENSITIVE NATURE
THERE IS A MASS OF GRAPHIC, EXPLICIT, NUDITY AND DISTURBING CONTENT THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF THE COLLECTIONS HERE ON DISPLAY ….
Above: Original oil painting of Kathleen Cleaver by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: Original oil painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman of Angela Davis here on display at Littledean Jail.
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: An original Tommie Smith hand signed photograph of the iconic ‘ Black Power Salute’ at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games … here on display at the jail.
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Original oil painting of Malcolm X (aka Malcolm Little) by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
Above : Original oil painting of Malcolm X (aka Malcolm Little) by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: Original oil painting of Rev, Dr Martha Luther King Jr by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
Above: Original oil painting of Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman on display here at the jail
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAM HISTORY AND CULTURE, WASHINGTON DC, USA
The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the ‘traditional’ civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced.
The language of the Black Panthers was violent as was their public stance. The two founders of the Black Panther Party were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. They preached for a “revolutionary war” but though they considered themselves an African-American party, they were willing to speak out for all those who were oppressed from whatever minority group. They were willing to use violence to get what they wanted.
The Black Panther Party (BPP) had four desires : equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights.
It had a 10 Point Plan to get its desired goals.
The ten points of the party platform were:
1) “Freedom; the power to determine the destiny of the Black and oppressed communities.
2) Full Employment; give every person employment or guaranteed income.
3) End to robbery of Black communities; the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules as promised to ex-slaves during the reconstruction period following the emancipation of slavery.
4) Decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings; the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people can build.
5) Education for the people; that teaches the true history of Blacks and their role in present day society.
6) Free health care; health facilities which will develop preventive medical programs.
7) End to police brutality and murder of Black people and other people of color and oppressed people.
8) End to all wars of aggression; the various conflicts which exist stem directly from the United States ruling circle.
9) Freedom for all political prisoners; trials by juries that represent our peers.
10) Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and community control of modern industry.”
The call for a revolutionary war against authority at the time of the Vietnam War, alerted the FBI to the Black Panther’s activities. Whatever happened, the FBI was successful in destroying the Black Panther’s movement.
Those who supported the BPP claim that the FBI used dirty tactics such as forging letters to provoke conflict between the BPP’s leaders; organising the murders of BPP leaders such as John Huggins; initiating a “Black Propaganda” campaign to convince the public that the BPP was a threat to national security; using infiltrators to commit crimes that could be blamed on the BPP so that leaders could be arrested and writing threatening letters to jurors during trials so that the BPP would be blamed for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Supporters of the BPP claimed that this last tactic was used with success at the trial of the “Chicago Eight” whereby the jury, apparently angered at being intimidated by the BPP, found the eight members of the BPP guilty. None of the above tactics have ever been proved or admitted to by the FBI.
In California, the party leader of Oakland, David Hilliard, claimed that the BPP was at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. Hilliard also claimed that the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, constantly vilified the BPP.
“This caused a stigma to beplaced upon the Black Panther Party as Pied Pipers of cultural and social revolution characterising us as the essence of violence, chaos and evil.”
The head of the FBI, Edgar J Hoover, called the BPP “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” Hoover ordered field operatives of the FBI to introduce measures that would cripple the BPP. Using infiltrators (one of these, William O’Neal, became Chief of Security for the BPP), the FBI knew of all the movements etc of BPP leaders. FBI raids in BPP heartlands – Chicago and Los Angeles – that led to the arrest of regional leaders, resulted in the collapse of the movement.
To view the BPP as a purely revolutionary and violent movement is wrong. In areas of support the BPP created a Free Food Program to feed those who could not afford to do so for themselves; Free Medical Research Health Clinics to provide basic health care for those who could not afford it and an Intercommunal Youth Band to give community pride to the movement. In a book of his essays called “To Die for the People”, Huey Newton wrote that these were exactly what the African-American community wanted and that the BPP was providing its own people with something the government was not. Such community projects have survived in other guises, but after the demise of the BPP their lost their drive for a number of years.
Was there much support for the BPP? Were they ‘Public Enemy Number One’ as Hoover claimed? In 1966, a survey carried out in America showed that less than 5% of African-Americans approved of groups such as the BPP. 60% were positively hostile to such groups. But were these survey results slanted in such a manner as to tarnish the name of the Black Panthers at an early stage in its existence especially as the head of the FBI, Hoover, was known to be very against the movement? In areas such as Oakland and parts of San Francisco and South San Francisco where the BPP claimed to feed nearly 200,000 people, support would have been a lot higher.
The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African-American revolutionary leftist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. The Black Panther Party achieved national and international notoriety through its involvement in the Black Powermovement and U.S. politics of the 1960s and 1970s. The group’s “provocative rhetoric, militant posture, and cultural and political flourishes permanently altered the contours of American Identity.”[1]
Founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale on October 15, 1966, the organization initially set forth a doctrine calling primarily for the protection of African American neighborhoods from police brutality.[2] The organization’s leaders espoused socialist and communist (largely Maoist) doctrines; however, the Party’s early black nationalist reputation attracted a diverse membership.[3] The Black Panther Party’s objectives and philosophy expanded and evolved rapidly during the party’s existence, making ideological consensus within the party difficult to achieve, and causing some prominent members to openly disagree with the views of the leaders.
The organization’s official newspaper, The Black Panther, was first circulated in 1967. Also that year, the Black Panther Party marched on the California State Capitol in Sacramento in protest of a selective ban on weapons. By 1968, the party had expanded into many cities throughout the United States, among them, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, Omaha,Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.. Peak membership was near 10,000 by 1969, and their newspaper, under the editorial leadership of Eldridge Cleaver, had a circulation of 250,000.[4] The group created a Ten-Point Program, a document that called for “Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace”, as well as exemption from conscription for African-American men, among other demands.[5] With the Ten-Point program, “What We Want, What We Believe”, the Black Panther Party expressed its economic and political grievances.[6]
Gaining national prominence, the Black Panther Party became an icon of the counterculture of the 1960s.[7] Ultimately, the Panthers condemned black nationalism as “black racism” and became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity.[8] They instituted a variety of community social programs designed to alleviate poverty, improve health among inner city black communities, and soften the Party’s public image.[9] The Black Panther Party’s most widely known programs were its armed citizens’ patrols to evaluate behavior of police officers and its Free Breakfast for Children program. However, the group’s political goals were often overshadowed by their confrontational, militant, and violent tactics against police.[10]
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover called the party “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,”[11] and he supervised an extensive program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, infiltration, perjury, police harassment, assassination, and many other tactics designed to undermine Panther leadership, incriminate party members and drain the organization of resources and manpower. Through these tactics, Hoover hoped to diminish the Party’s threat to the general power structure of the U.S., or even maintain its influence as a strong undercurrent.[12]Angela Davis, Ward Churchill, and others have alleged that federal, state and local law enforcement officials went to great lengths to discredit and destroy the organization, including assassination.[13][14][15] Black Panther Party membership reached a peak of 10,000 by early 1969, then suffered a series of contractions due to legal troubles, incarcerations, internal splits, expulsions and defections. Popular support for the Party declined further after reports appeared detailing the group’s involvement in activities such as drug dealing and extortion schemes directed against Oakland merchants[16] By 1972 most Panther activity centered around the national headquarters and a school in Oakland, where the party continued to influence local politics. Party contractions continued throughout the 1970s; by 1980 the Black Panther Party comprised just 27 members.[17]
They worked at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center, where they also served on the advisory board. To combat police brutality, the advisory board obtained 5,000 signatures in support of the City Council’s setting up a police review board to review complaints. Newton was also taking classes at the City College and at San Francisco Law School. Both institutions were active in the North Oakland Center. Thus the pair had numerous connections with whom they talked about a new organization. Inspired by the success of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization and Stokely Carmichael‘s calls for separate black political organizations,[19] they wrote their initial platform statement, the Ten-Point Program. With the help of Huey’s brother Melvin, they decided on a uniform of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets, and openly displayed loaded shotguns. (In his studies, Newton had discovered a California law that allowed carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun in public, as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one.)[20]
What became standard Black Panther discourse emerged from a long history of urban activism, social criticism and political struggle by African Americans. There is considerable debate about the impact that the Black Panther Party had on the greater society, or even their local environment. Author Jama Lazerow writes “As inheritors of the discipline, pride, and calm self-assurance preached by Malcolm X, the Panthers became national heroes in African American communities by infusing abstract nationalism with street toughness—by joining the rhythms of black working-class youth culture to the interracial élan and effervescence of Bay Area New Left politics…In 1966, the Panthers defined Oakland’s ghetto as a territory, the police as interlopers, and the Panther mission as the defense of community. The Panthers’ famous “policing the police” drew attention to the spatial remove that White Americans enjoyed from the state violence that had come to characterize life in black urban communities.”[12] In his book Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America journalist Hugh Pearson takes a more jaundiced view, linking Panther criminality and violence to worsening conditions in America’s black ghettos as their influence spread nationwide.[21]
Awareness of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense grew rapidly after their May 2, 1967 protest at the California State Assembly.
In May 1967, the Panthers invaded the State Assembly Chamber in Sacramento, guns in hand, in what appears to have been a publicity stunt. Still, they scared a lot of important people that day. At the time, the Panthers had almost no following. Now, (a year later) however, their leaders speak on invitation almost anywhere radicals gather, and many whites wear “Honkeys for Huey” buttons, supporting the fight to free Newton, who has been in jail since last Oct. 28 (1967) on the charge that he killed a policeman…”[22]
In October 1967, Huey Newton was arrested for the murder of Oakland Police Officer John Frey, a murder he later admitted and pointed to with pride.[23] At the time, Newton claimed that he had been falsely accused, leading to the “Free Huey” campaign. On February 17, 1968, at the “Free Huey” birthday rally in the Oakland Auditorium, several Black Panther Party leaders spoke. H. Rap Brown, Black Panther Party Minister of Justice, declared:
Huey Newton is our only living revolutionary in this country today…He has paid his dues. He has paid his dues. How many white folks did you kill today?[9]
The mostly black crowd erupted in applause. James Forman, Black Panther Party Minister of Foreign Affairs, followed with:
We must serve notice on our oppressors that we as a people are not going to be frightened by the attempted assassination of our leaders. For my assassination—and I’m the low man on the totem pole—I want 30 police stations blown up, one southern governor, two mayors, and 500 cops, dead. If they assassinate Brother Carmichael, Brother Brown…Brother Seale, this price is tripled. And if Huey is not set free and dies, the sky is the limit![24]
Referring to the 1967–68 period, black historian Curtis Austin states: “During this period of development, black nationalism became part of the party’s philosophy.”[25] During the months following the “Free Huey” birthday rallies, one in Oakland and another in Los Angeles, the Party’s violent, anti-white rhetoric attracted a huge following and Black Panther Party membership exploded.
Two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., on April 6, 1968, seventeen-year-old Bobby Hutton joined Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party Minister of Information, in what Cleaver later admitted was “an ambush” of the Oakland police.[26] Two officers were wounded, and Bobby Hutton became another martyr when officers opened fire, killing Hutton and wounding Cleaver.[27]
After Hutton’s death, Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale and Kathleen Cleaver (Eldridge’s wife) held a rally in New York City at the Fillmore East in support of Hutton and Cleaver. PlaywrightLeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) joined them on stage before a mixed crowd of 2,000:
We want to become masters of our own destiny…we want to build a black nation to benefit black people…The white people who killed Bobby Hutton are the same white people sitting here.[28]
The crowd, including many whites, gave LeRoi Jones a standing ovation.
In 1968, the group shortened its name to the Black Panther Party and sought to focus directly on political action. Members were encouraged to carry guns and to defend themselves against violence. An influx of college students joined the group, which had consisted chiefly of “brothers off the block.” This created some tension in the group. Some members were more interested in supporting the Panthers social programs, while others wanted to maintain their “street mentality”. For many Panthers, the group was little more than a type of gang.[29]
Curtis Austin states that by late 1968, Black Panther Party ideology had evolved to the point where they began to reject black nationalism and became more a “revolutionary internationalist movement”:
(The Party) dropped its wholesale attacks against whites and began to emphasize more of a class analysis of society. Its emphasis on Marxist-Leninist doctrine and its repeated espousal of Maoist statements signaled the group’s transition from a revolutionary nationalist to a revolutionary internationalist movement. Every Party member had to study Mao Tse-tung’s “Little Red Book” to advance his or her knowledge of peoples’ struggle and the revolutionary process.[30]
Panther slogans and iconography spread. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two American medalists, gave the black power salute during the playing of the American national anthem. The International Olympic Committee banned them from the Olympic Games for life. Hollywood celebrity Jane Fonda publicly supported Huey Newton and the Black Panthers during the early 1970s. She and other Hollywood celebrities became involved in the Panthers’ leftist programs. The Panthers attracted a wide variety of left-wing revolutionaries and political activists, including writer Jean Genet, former Ramparts magazine editor David Horowitz (who later became a major critic of what he describes as Panther criminality)[31] and left-wing lawyer Charles R. Garry, who acted as counsel in the Panthers’ many legal battles.
Survival committees and coalitions were organized with several groups across the United States. Chief among these was the Rainbow Coalition formed by Fred Hampton and the Chicago Black Panthers. The Rainbow Coalition included the Young Lords, a Latino youth gang turned political under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez.[32] It also included the Young Patriots, which was organized to support young, white migrants from the Appalachia region.[33]
The Black Panther Party had a list of 26 rules that dictated their daily party work. They regulated their participant’s use of drugs, alcohol, and their actions while they were working. Almost all of the rules had to do with only the actions of members while they were in an event or a meeting of the Black Panthers. The rules also said that members had to follow the Ten Point Program, and had to know it by heart. The final section of rules had to do with more of the leader’s responsibilities, such as providing a first aid center for members of the Black Panthers.[34][35][36]
The original “Ten Point Program” from October, 1966 was as follows [37][38]:
1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black Community.
We believe that black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.
2. We want full employment for our people.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our black Community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment as currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over 50 million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
We believe that black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people.
We believe we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for self defense.
8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
We believe that all black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the black community from which the black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the “average reasoning man” of the black community.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
1970 BPP pamphlet combining an anti-drug message with revolutionary politics
“This country is a nation of thieves. It stole everything it has, beginning with black people. The U.S. cannot justify its existence as the policeman of the world any longer. I do not want to be a part of the American pie. The American pie means raping South Africa, beating Vietnam, beating South America, raping the Philippines, raping every country you’ve been in. I don’t want any of your blood money. I don’t want to be part of that system. We must question whether or not we want this country to continue being the wealthiest country in the world at the price of raping everybody else.”
Inspired by Mao Zedong‘s advice to revolutionaries in The Little Red Book, Newton called on the Panthers to “serve the people” and to make “survival programs” a priority within its branches. The most famous of their programs was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, initially run out of an Oaklandchurch.
The BPP also founded the “Intercommunal Youth Institute” in January 1971,[41] with the intent of demonstrating how black youth ought to be educated. Ericka Huggins was the director of the school and Regina Davis was an administrator.[42] The school was unique in that it didn’t have grade levels but instead had different skill levels so an 11 year old could be in second-level English and fifth-level science.[42] Elaine Brown taught reading and writing to a group of 10 to 11 year olds deemed “uneducable” by the system.[43] As the school children were given free busing; breakfast, lunch, and dinner; books and school supplies; children were taken to have medical checkups; and many children were given free clothes.[44]
The Party briefly merged with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, headed by Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture). In 1967, the party organized a march on the California state capitol to protest the state’s attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public after the Panthers had begun exercising that right. Participants in the march carried rifles. In 1968, BPP Minister of InformationEldridge Cleaver ran for Presidential office on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. They were a big influence on the White Panther Party, that was tied to the Detroit/Ann Arbor band MC5 and their manager John Sinclair, author of the book Guitar Army that also promulgated a ten-point program.
Black Panther Party members standing in the street, armed with a Colt .45 and a shotgun
One of the central aims of the BPP was to stop abuse by local police departments. When the party was founded in 1966, only 16 of Oakland’s 661 police officers were African American.[45] Accordingly, many members questioned the Department’s objectivity and impartiality. This situation was not unique to Oakland, as most police departments in major cities did not have proportional membership by African Americans. Throughout the 1960s, race riots and civil unrest broke out in impoverished African-American communities subject to policing by disproportionately white police departments. The work and writings ofRobert F. Williams, Monroe, North CarolinaNAACP chapter president and author of Negroes with Guns, also influenced the BPP’s tactics.
The BPP sought to oppose police brutality through neighborhood patrols (an approach since adopted by groups such as Copwatch). Police officers were often followed by armed Black Panthers who sought at times to aid African-Americans who were victims of police brutality and racial prejudice. Both Panthers and police died as a result of violent confrontations. By 1970, 34 Panthers had died as a result of police raids, shoot-outs and internal conflict.[46] Various police organizations claim the Black Panthers were responsible for the deaths of at least 15 law enforcement officers and the injuries of dozens more. During those years, juries found several BPP members guilty of violent crimes.[47]
On October 17, 1967, Oakland police officer John Frey was shot to death in an altercation with Huey P. Newton during a traffic stop. In the stop, Newton and backup officer Herbert Heanes also suffered gunshot wounds. Newton was arrested and charged with murder, which sparked a “free Huey” campaign, organized by Eldridge Cleaver to help Newton’s legal defense. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, though after three years in prison he was released when his conviction was reversed on appeal. During later years Newton would boast to friend and sociobiologist Robert Trivers (one of the few whites who became a Party member during its waning years) that he had in fact murdered officer John Frey and never regretted it.[23]
In April 1968, the party was involved in a gun battle, in which Panther Bobby Hutton was killed. Cleaver, who was wounded, later said that he had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, thus provoking the shoot-out.[26] In Chicago, on 4 Dec 1969, two Panthers were killed when the Chicago Police raided the home of Panther leader Fred Hampton. The raid had been orchestrated by the police in conjunction with the FBI; during this era the FBI was complicit in many local police actions. Hampton was shot and killed, as was Panther guard Mark Clark. Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan, his assistant and eight Chicago police officers were indicted by a federal grand jury over the raid, but the charges were later dismissed.[48][4]
Prominent Black Panther member H. Rap Brown is serving life imprisonment for the 2000 murder of Ricky Leon Kinchen, a Fulton County, Georgia sheriff’s deputy, and the wounding of another officer in a gunbattle. Both officers were black.[49]
From 1966 to 1972, when the party was most active, several departments hired significantly more African-American police officers. During this time period, many African American police officers started to form organizations of their own to become more protective of the African American citizenry and to increase black representation on police forces.[50]
COINTELPRO document outlining the FBI’s plans to ‘neutralize’ Jean Seberg for her support for the Black Panther Party, by attempting to publicly “cause her embarassment” and “tarnish her image”
In August 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) instructed its program “COINTELPRO” to “neutralize” what the FBI called “black nationalist hate groups” and other dissident groups. In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”[51] By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized “Black Nationalist” COINTELPRO actions. The goals of the program were to prevent the unification of militant black nationalist groups and to weaken the power of their leaders, as well as to discredit the groups to reduce their support and growth. The initial targets included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Nation of Islam. Leaders who were targeted included the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Maxwell Stanford and Elijah Muhammad.
Part of the FBI COINTELPRO actions were directed at creating and exploiting existing rivalries between black nationalist factions. One such attempt was to “intensify the degree of animosity” between the Black Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers, a Chicago street gang. They sent an anonymous letter to the Ranger’s gang leader claiming that the Panthers were threatening his life, a letter whose intent was to induce “reprisals” against Panther leadership. InSouthern California similar actions were taken to exacerbate a “gang war” between the Black Panther Party and a group called the US Organization. Violent conflict between these two groups, including shootings and beatings, led to the deaths of at least four Black Panther Party members. FBI agents claimed credit for instigating some of the violence between the two groups.[52]
On January 17, 1969, Los Angeles Panther Captain Bunchy Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins were killed in Campbell Hall on the UCLA campus, in a gun battle with members of US Organization stemming from a dispute over who would control UCLA’s black studies program. Another shootout between the two groups on March 17 led to further injuries. It was alleged that the FBI had sent a provocative letter to US Organization in an attempt to create antagonism between US and the Panthers.[53]
From the beginning the Black Panther Party’s focus on militancy came with a reputation for violence. They employed a California law which permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one.[54] Carrying weapons openly and making threats against police officers, for example, chants like “The Revolution has co-ome, it’s time to pick up the gu-un. Off the pigs!”,[55] helped create the Panthers’ reputation as a violent organization.
On May 2, 1967, the California State Assembly Committee on Criminal Procedure was scheduled to convene to discuss what was known as the “Mulford Act“, which would ban public displays of loaded firearms. Cleaver and Newton put together a plan to send a group of about 30 Panthers led by Seale from Oakland to Sacramento to protest the bill. The group entered the assembly carrying their weapons, an incident which was widely publicized, and which prompted police to arrest Seale and five others. The group pled guilty to misdemeanor charges of disrupting a legislative session.[56]
On October 17, 1967, Oakland police officer John Frey was shot to death in an altercation with Huey P. Newton during a traffic stop. In the stop, Newton and backup officer Herbert Heanes also suffered gunshot wounds. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter at trial. This incident gained the party even wider recognition by the radical American left, and a “Free Huey” campaign ensued.[57]Newton was released after three years, when his conviction was reversed on appeal. During later years Newton would boast to sociobiologist Robert Trivers (one of the few whites who became a Party member during its waning years) that he had in fact murdered officer John Frey.[23]
On April 7, 1968, Panther Bobby Hutton was killed, and Cleaver was wounded in a shootout with the Oakland police. Two police officers were also shot. Although at the time Cleaver claimed that the police had ambushed them, Cleaver later admitted that he had led the Panther group on a deliberate ambush of the police officers, thus provoking the shoot-out.[26][27]
From the fall of 1967 through the end of 1970, nine police officers were killed and 56 were wounded, and ten Panther deaths and an unknown number of injuries resulted from confrontations. In 1969 alone, 348 Panthers were arrested for a variety of crimes.[58] On February 18, 1970 Albert Wayne Williams was shot by the Portland Police Bureau outside the Black Panther party headquarters inPortland, Oregon. Though his wounds put him in a critical condition, he made a full recovery.[59]
In May 1969, Black Panther Party members tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, a 19-year-old member of the New York chapter, because they suspected him of being a police informant. Three party officers — Warren Kimbro, George Sams, Jr., and Lonnie McLucas — later admitted taking part. Sams, who gave the order to shoot Rackley at the murder scene, turned state’s evidence and testified that he had received orders personally from Bobby Seale to carry out the execution. After this betrayal, party supporters alleged that Sams was himself the informant and an agent provocateuremployed by the FBI.[60] The case resulted in the New Haven, Connecticut Black Panther trials of 1970, memorialized in the courtroom sketches of Robert Templeton. The trial ended with a hung jury, and the prosecution chose not to seek another trial.
Black Panther bookkeeper Betty van Patter was murdered in 1974, and although this crime was never solved, the Panthers, according to the magazine Mother Jones, were “almost universally believed to be responsible”.[61]David Horowitz became certain that Black Panther members were responsible and denounced the Panthers. When Huey Newton was shot dead 15 years later, Horowitz characterized Newton as a killer.[62] When Art Goldberg, a former colleague at Ramparts, alleged that Horowitz himself was responsible for the death of van Patter by recommending her for the position of Black Panther accountant, Horowitz counter-alleged that “the Panthers had killed more than a dozen people in the course of conducting extortion, prostitution and drug rackets in the Oaklandghetto.” He said further that the organization was committed “to doctrines that are false and to causes that are demonstrably wrongheaded and even evil.”[63] Former chairperson Elaine Brown also questioned Horowitz’s motives in recommending van Patter to the Panthers; she suspected espionage.[64] Horowitz later became known for his conservative viewpoints and opposition to leftistthought.[65]
While part of the organization was already participating in local government and social services, another group was in constant conflict with the police. For some of the Party’s supporters, the separation between political action, criminal activity, social services, access to power, and grass-roots identity became confusing and contradictory as the Panthers’ political momentum was bogged down in thecriminal justice system. Disagreements among the Party’s leaders over how to confront these challenges led to a significant split in the Party. Some Panther leaders, such as Huey Newton and David Hilliard, favored a focus on community service coupled with self-defense; others, such as Eldridge Cleaver, embraced a more confrontational strategy. Eldridge Cleaver deepened the schism in the party when he publicly criticized the Party for adopting a “reformist” rather than “revolutionary” agenda and called for Hilliard’s removal. Cleaver was expelled from the Central Committee but went on to lead a splinter group, the Black Liberation Army, which had previously existed as an underground paramilitary wing of the Party.[66]
The Party eventually fell apart due to rising legal costs and internal disputes. In 1974, Huey Newton appointed Elaine Brown as the first Chairwoman of the Party. Under Brown’s leadership, the Party became involved in organizing for more radical electoral campaigns, including Brown’s 1975 unsuccessful run for Oakland City Council and Lionel Wilson‘s successful election as the first black mayor of Oakland.[67]
In addition to changing the Party’s direction towards more involvement in the electoral arena, Brown also increased the influence of women Panthers by placing them in more visible roles within the male-dominated organization. Brown claims this attempt to battle previously pervasive sexism within the Party was very stressful for her and led to her dependence on Thorazine as a way to escape the pressures of leading the Party.[68]
In 1977, after Newton returned from Cuba and ordered the beating of a female Panther who organized many of the Party’s social programs, Brown left the Party.[69]
Although many scholars and activists date the Party’s downfall to the period before Brown became the leader, an increasingly smaller cadre of Panthers continued to exist through the 1970s. By 1980, Panther membership had dwindled to 27, and the Panther-sponsored school finally closed in 1982 after it had become known that Newton was embezzling funds from the school to pay for his drug addiction.[67][70]
Some critics have written that the Panthers’ “romance with the gun” and their promotion of “gang mentality” was likely associated with the enormous increase in both black-on-black and black-on-white crime observed during later decades.[21][71] This increase occurred in the Panthers’ home town, Oakland California, and in cities nationwide.[72][73][74][75][76] Interviewed after he left the Black Panther Party, former Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver lamented that the legacy of the Panthers was at least partly one of disrespect for the law and indiscriminate violence. He acknowledged that, had his promotion of violent black militantism prevailed, it would have resulted in “a total bloodbath.” Cleaver also lamented the abandonment of poor blacks by the black bourgeoisie and felt that black youth had been left without appropriate role models who could teach them to properly channel their militant spirit and their desire for justice.[77][78][79][80][81]
In October 2006, the Black Panther Party held a 40-year reunion in Oakland.[82]
In January 2007, a joint California state and Federal task force charged eight men with the August 29, 1971 murder of California police officer Sgt. John Young.[83] The defendants have been identified as former members of the Black Liberation Army. Two have been linked to the Black Panthers.[84] In 1975 a similar case was dismissed when a judge ruled that police gathered evidence through the use of torture.[85] On June 29, 2009 Herman Bell pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of Sgt. Young. In July 2009, charges were dropped against four of the accused: Ray Boudreaux, Henry W. Jones, Richard Brown and Harold Taylor. Also that month Jalil Muntaquim pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit voluntary manslaughter becoming the second person to be convicted in this case.[86]
Since the 1990s, former Panther chief of staff David Hilliard has offered tours of sites in Oakland historically significant to the Black Panther Party.[87]
The Anti-Defamation League and The Southern Poverty Law Center consider the New Black Panthers as a hate group.[88] Members of the original Black Panther Party have insisted that this New Black Panther Party is illegitimate and have strongly objected that there “is no new Black Panther Party”.[89]
The National Alliance of Black Panthers was formed on July 31, 2004. It was inspired by the grassroots activism of the original organization but not otherwise related. Its chairwoman is Shazza Nzingha.[90]
DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK – WHERE GOOD AND EVIL COLLIDE & WHERE FANTASY MEETS REALITY .
TRUE CRIME , MURDERABILIA, WITCHCRAFT, SATANISM AND THE OCCULT …. IT’S ALL HERE AND MUCH MORE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE , UK .
ABOVE: Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of John Wayne Gacy on display at Littledean Jail .
All of Gacy’s known murders were committed inside his Norwood Park, Illinois home. His victims would typically be lured to this address by force or deception, and all but one victim were murdered by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a tourniquet (his first victim was stabbed to death). Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home. Three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.
Gacy became known as the “Killer Clown” due to his charitable services at fundraising events, parades, and children’s parties where he would dress as “Pogo the Clown”, a character he devised himself.
BELOW : Various exhibit items to include one of Gacy’s “Pogo The Clown ” suits , handwritten and signed correspondence , a hand painting and various other memorabilia, all of which is on display here at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire, UK .
ABOVE AND BELOW : One of John Wayne Gacy’s original worn clown suits. There are two other known Gacy clown suits on display at The National Museum of Crime , Washington DC , USA .
BELOW: picture of 2 other Gacy clown suits, on display at The National Museum of Crime, Washington DC ….. Previously owned ( not sure if he still owns them ) by Jonathan Davis, lead singer of American Heavy Metal Band “Korn .”
ABOVE: John Wayne Gacy pictured in jail, so say, shortly before his execution by lethal injection
HERE IS MORE INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY AND HOPEFULLY EDUCATIONAL FOOTAGE TOUCHING UPON THE ANTI NAZI MOVEMENTS HERE IN BRITAIN DURING THE 1970’S- 1980’S .
PLEASE DO BE AWARE THAT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , IT’S OWNER , OR ANY OF IT’S STAFF HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAVE NO AFFILIATION , CONNECTION OR INVOLVEMENT WITH ANY EXTREMIST , POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS WHATSOEVER …… WE SIMPLY EXHIBIT AND TOUCH UPON A GREAT MANY POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE COVER IN THE WAY WE CHOOSE TO DO HERE. …. “IT’S ALL HISTORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE”….EVEN IF ON OCCASIONS, SENSITIVE , THOUGHT PROVOKING SUBJECT MATTERS THAT INCITE STRONG DEBATE .
The Anti-Nazi League (ANL) was an organisation set up in 1977 on the initiative of the Socialist Workers Party with sponsorship from sometrade unions and the endorsement of a list of prominent people to oppose the rise of far-right groups in the United Kingdom. It was wound down in 1981. It was relaunched in 1992, but merged into Unite Against Fascism in 2003.
The initial sponsors included Peter Hain (a former Young Liberal leader; then the communications officer of the postal workers’ union UCW, more recently Secretary of State for Wales), Ernie Roberts(deputy general secretary of the engineering union AUEW) and Paul Holborow (of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)).[citation needed][edit]History
In its first period, 1977–1982, the Anti-Nazi League was supposedly run by an elected committee nationally and similar committees throughout the country, although in practice many local and National ANL initiatives were launched directly by the SWP. Many trade unions sponsored it as did the Indian Workers Association (then a large organisation), and many members of the Labour Party and MPs such as Neil Kinnock.[citation needed] The Anti-Nazi League was best known for the two giant Rock Against Racism carnivals of 1978: involving bands such as The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots, X-Ray Spex andTom Robinson, they saw 80,000 and then 100,000.[citation needed] In 1981 with the eclipse of the National Front and collapse of the British Movement the initial incarnation of the ANL was wound up. Some elements within the ANL opposed the winding up of the organisation, including some members of the SWP. After being expelled from the Socialist Workers Party some of these elements formedRed Action and with others organised Anti-Fascist Action, who had a much more open view to using violence to intimidate groups and individuals they considered fascist. In 1992 the Socialist Workers Party relaunched the Anti-Nazi League due to the electoral success of the British National Party.[citation needed] In 2004 the ANL affiliated with the Unite Against Fascism group alongside other groups such as the National Assembly Against Racism.[1][2]
Most of the ANL’s activities in the 1970s were in opposition to the National Front, an organization led by John Tyndall who had a long history of involvement with openly fascist and Nazi groups. The ANL also campaigned against the British Movement which was a more openly Hitlerite grouping. The ANL was allowed to run down in the early 1980s.[citation needed] The organization was revived in 1992. In the 1990s its main efforts have been to oppose the British National Party, which denies that it is a Nazi Party.
In April 1979, an ANL member, Blair Peach, was killed following a demonstration at Southall against a National Front election meeting. Police had sealed off the area around Southall Town Hall, and anti-racist demonstrators trying to make their way there were blocked. In the ensuing confrontation, more than 40 people (including 21 police) were injured, and 300 were arrested. Bricks were hurled at police, who described the rioting as the most violent they have handled in London. Among the demonstrators was Peach, a New Zealand-born member of the ANL. During an incident in a side street 100 yards from the town hall, he was seriously injured and collapsed, blood running down his face from serious head injuries. He died later in hospital.[3] An inquest jury later returned a verdict of misadventure, and Blair Peach remains a symbolic figurehead for the ANL. Campaigns continue for a public inquiry into his death. A primary school in Southall bears his name.[4]
The ANL National Organiser at the time of the creation of Unite Against Fascism was Weyman Bennett, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party. Its previous National Organiser was Julie Waterson, also a member of the Socialist Workers Party and a former member of the National Executive of the Socialist Alliance.[citation needed]
When the National Front and the British National Party were led by John Tyndall, his record of involvement in openly Neo-Nazi groups made it far easier to assert that the National Front and BNP werefascist or Neo-Nazi in nature. Similarly, his convictions for violence and incitement to racial hatred provide ample grounds for the ANL to claim both organisations were racist.[5] The ANL and other anti fascists argue that the BNP remains a Nazi party irrespective of the fact that it has adopted what the ANL describes as the ‘Dual Strategy’ of cultivating respectability in the media while retaining a cadre of committed fascists. This position is countered by BNP members who claim that their party is increasingly democratic in its nature. Journalistic investigation by The Guardian newspaper (December 22, 2006) has supported the ANL’s view that the BNP remains a fascist party.[6]
More broadly, the ANL is seen as a form of anti-fascism that seeks out alliances with a broad spectrum of progressive organisations usually rooted in the Labour movement. Socialist historian Dave Renton, for example, in his book Fascism: Theory and Practice,[7] describes the ANL as “an orthodox united front” based on a “strategy of working class unity”, as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Critics of the ANL, such as Anti-Fascist Action[8] argue that the ANL’s co-operation with “bourgeois” groups who work closely with the state, such as Searchlight magazine and the Labour Party, rule out this description, making it a classic popular front.
Critics of the ANL (including people opposed to the far right) claim that its “No Platform for Nazis” policy and call for far right parties to be “shut down” amounts to denying the democratic rights tofreedom of speech and freedom of association. For some, this reflects the fact that freedom of speech is either universal or non-existent; others take the more nuanced position that this reflects the greater protection to be accorded to those sub-sets of freedom of speech and association which deliver ‘democracy’ (so political speech would attract greater protection than forms of speech, such as pornography, which do not contribute to democracy). This view point accords with those anti-fascists who believe that the best way to defeat the far right is by debate rather than censorship, which they say is both ineffective and hypocritical. Relatedly, the ANL has been subject to the more pragmatic criticism that its constant calls for groups like the BNP to be banned will allow the far right to portray themselves as victims of censorship, and the anti-fascist movement as intolerant and undemocratic. The ANL response to this criticism derives from the argument that, because fascist groups ultimately seek to curtail democracy and suppress democratic rights (even if they initially seek to obtain power through democratic means), the curtailment of their democratic rights can be justified as a means of protecting those of the broader citizenry. Militant anti-fascists, however, have criticised the ANL for relying on the state to prosecute or censor fascism, rather than promoting direct action by citizens.[citation needed]
The ANL has been accused of being a ‘front’ for the Socialist Workers Party; that is, of being controlled by the SWP and having the agenda of recruiting members to that organisation, while giving the impression of being independent,[9] generally by left-wingers who are not associated with the SWP
HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL AND THROUGH OUR BUSINESS FACEBOOK WE TRY AND PROVIDE A BALANCED AND EDUCATIONAL INTERACTIVE INSIGHT INTO WHAT MANY DEEM TO BE TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT OUR BRITISH GOVERNMENTS FAIL TO RECOGNISE AS BEING A PART OF OUR CULTURAL HISTORY ….. IT HAPPENED HERE IN BRITAIN DURING THIS TIME AND CONTINUES TO DO SO ON A LESSER SCALE TODAY
PLEASE DO BE AWARE THAT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , IT’S OWNER , OR ANY OF IT’S STAFF HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAVE NO AFFILIATION , CONNECTION OR INVOLVEMENT WITH ANY EXTREMIST , POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS WHATSOEVER …… WE SIMPLY EXHIBIT AND TOUCH UPON A GREAT MANY POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE COVER IN THE WAY WE CHOOSE TO DO HERE. …. “IT’S ALL HISTORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE”….EVEN IF ON OCCASIONS, SENSITIVE , THOUGHT PROVOKING SUBJECT MATTERS THAT INCITE STRONG DEBATE .
BELOW IS UNDOUBTEDLY ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL SPEECHES OF ALL TIME BY A BRITISH MP ENOCH POWELL …. THE ” RIVERS OF BLOOD SPEECH “
The National Front (NF) is a far right, racial nationalist, whites-only[4]political party whose heyday was the 1970s.[5] Its electoral support peaked in the1979 general election, when it received 191,719 votes (0.6% of the overall vote).
The British prison service and police services forbid their employees to be members of the party.[6]
The party accounts submitted to the Electoral Commission in 2007 detailed national profitability.[7] It put up 17 candidates in the 2010 general election and 18 candidates for the 2010 local elections. The party failed to gain any representation at either national or local level.
The National Front have been described as fascist[8][2][9] and neo-fascist.[3] In his book, The New Fascists, Wilkinson, comparing the NF to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), comments on their neo-fascist nature and neo-Nazi ideals:[edit]Policies
“The only other case among the western democracies of a neo-fascist movement making some progress towards creating an effective mass party with at least a chance of winning some leverage, is the National Front (NF) in Britain. It is interesting that the NF, like the MSI, has tried to develop a ‘two-track’ strategy. On the one hand it follows an opportunistic policy of attempting to present itself as a respectable political party appealing by argument and peaceful persuasion for the support of the British electorate. On the other, its leadership is deeply imbued with Nazi ideas, and though they try to play down their past affiliations with more blatantly Nazi movements, such as Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement, they covertly maintain intimate connections with small neo-Nazi cells in Britain and abroad, because all their beliefs and motives make this not only tactically expedient but effective.”[3]
The National Front also stand against immigration into the United Kingdom and would introduce a policy of compulsory repatriation of all those of non-European descent as well as closing the borders to all further immigration. The party claims to stand against “American imperialism“, and would withdraw from NATO and the European Union. The party supports the use of capital punishment for crimes of murder, rape, paedophilia and terrorism. It would reintroduce Section 28, and support the recriminalization of homosexuality. The party adopts a strongly pro-life stance, describing abortion as a “crime against humanity” and would repeal the 1967 Abortion Act. The NF claims to oppose all economic and cultural imperialism: “Nations should be free to determine their own political systems, their own economic systems and to develop their own culture.”[12] Its constitution expresses the fact that it is led by a National Directorate rather than a chairman. Section 2 says: “The National Front consists of a confederation of branches co-ordinated by a National Directorate. Additionally a Central Tribunal appointed by the National Directorate is responsible for acting as a final court of appeal in internal disciplinary matters and for acting as a disciplinary tribunal for cases brought directly against individual party members by the National Directorate.”[13] It claims that its skinhead image is a thing of the past.[14]
The party is critical of the historical accuracy of the Holocaust, and is inclined towards historical revisionism, but claims that it has no official view about it and defends the right of free speech for any historian of the subject.[14] In recent years the party has been in conflict with the British National Party over such issues as the BNP’s attempts to present itself with a more moderate image. The party has described the BNP as part of a “Zionist Occupation Government“. The NF’s former national chairman, Tom Holmes, condemned the BNP as no longer being a white nationalist party for having aSikh columnist in their party newspaper.[15]
A move towards unity on the far right had been growing during the 1960s as groups worked more closely together. Impetus was provided by the 1966 general election when a moderate Conservative Party was defeated and A. K. Chesterton, a cousin of the novelist G. K. Chesterton and leader of the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL), argued that a patriotic and racialist right wing party would have won the election.[16] Acting on a suggestion by John Tyndall, Chesterton opened talks with the 1960s incarnation of the British National Party (who had already been discussing a possible deal with the new National Democratic Party) and agreed a merger with them, with the BNP’s Philip Maxwell addressing the LEL conference in October 1966.[17] A portion of the Racial Preservation Society led by Robin Beauclair also agreed to participate (although the remainder threw in their lot with the NDP, its house political party under David Brown) and so the NF was founded on February 7, 1967.[18]
The National Front grew during the 1970s and had between 16,000 and 20,000 members by 1974, and 50 local branches.[20] Its electoral base largely consisted of blue-collar workers and the self-employed who resented immigrant competition in the labour market or simply the appearance of immigrants. The Conservatives came particularly from the Conservative Monday Club group within the Conservative Party that had been founded in hostile reaction to Harold Macmillan‘s “Wind Of Change” speech. The NF fought on a platform of opposition to communism and liberalism, support for Ulster loyalism, opposition to the European Economic Community, and the compulsory repatriation of new Commonwealth immigrants who had entered Britain legally courtesy of the British Nationality Act, 1948.[21][22]
National Front march in Yorkshire, 1970s.
A common sight in England in the 1970s, the NF was well-known for its street demonstrations, particularly in London, where it often faced anti-fascistprotestors from opposing left-wing groups, including the International Marxist Group and the International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers Party). Opponents of the National Front claimed it to be a neo-fascist organization, and its activities were opposed by anti-racist groups such as Searchlight. The NF was led at first by Chesterton, who left under a cloud after half of the directorate (led by the NF’s major financer, Gordon Marshall) moved a vote of no confidence in him. He was replaced in 1970 by the party’s office manager John O’Brien, a former Conservative and supporter of Enoch Powell. O’Brien, however, left when he realised the NF’s leadership functions were being systematically taken over by the former Greater Britain Movement members, in order to ensure the party was really being run by John Tyndall and his deputy Martin Webster.[23] O’Brien and the NF’s treasurer Clare McDonald led a small group of supporters into John Davis’ National Independence Party, and the leadership of the National Front passed to Tyndall and Webster.
Between 1973 and 1976 the National Front performed better in local elections, as well as in several parliamentary by-elections, than in general elections. No parliamentary candidates ever won a seat, but the party saved its deposit on one occasion.[24][25]
A Canadian organisation was also set up (National Front of Canada) but it failed to take off.[28]
Already by 1974, the ITVdocumentaryThis Week exposed the neo-Nazi pasts (and continued links with Nazis from other countries) of Tyndall and Webster. This resulted in a stormy annual conference two weeks later, where Tyndall was booed with chants of “Nazi! Nazi!” when he tried to make his speech. This led to the leadership being passed to the populistJohn Kingsley Read. A stand-off between Read and his supporters (such as Roy Painter and Denis Pirie) and Tyndall and Webster followed, leading to a temporary stand-still in NF growth. Before long Read and his supporters seceded and Tyndall returned as leader. Read formed the short-lived National Party, which won two council seats in Blackburn in 1976.[29]
A National Front march through central London on 15 June 1974 led to a 21-year-old man, Kevin Gately, being killed and dozens more people (including 39 police officers) being injured, in clashes between the party’s supporters and members of ‘anti-fascist’ organisations.[30]
The National Front was also opposed to British membership of the European Economic Community, which began on 1 January 1973. On 25 March 1975, some 400 NF supporters demonstrated acrossLondon in protest against EEC membership, mostly in the Islington area of the capital.[31]
During 1976 the movement’s fortunes improved, and the NF had up to 14,000 paid members.[20] A campaign was launched in support of Robert Relf, who had been jailed for refusing to remove a sign from outside his home declaring that it was for sale only to English buyers. In the May local election the NF’s best result was in Leicester, where 48 candidates won 14,566 votes, nearly 20% of the total vote.[32] By June, the party’s growth rate was its highest ever. In the May 1977 Greater London Council election, 119,060 votes were cast in favour of the NF and the Liberals were beaten in 33 out of 92 constituencies.[33]
A police ban on an NF march through Hyde in October 1977 was defied by Martin Webster, who separately marched alone carrying a Union Jack and a sign reading “Defend British Free Speech from Red Terrorism”, surrounded by an estimated 2,500 police and onlookers. He was allowed to march, as ‘one man’ did not constitute a breaking of the ban. The tactic split the Anti-Nazi League in two and made a farce of the ban[citation needed] whilst attracting more media publicity for the Front.[34][dead link][35][36][unreliable source?][37]
If anything epitomised the NF under Tyndall and Webster it was the events of August 1977, when a large NF march went through the largely non-white area of Lewisham in South East London under an inflammatory slogan claiming that 85% of muggers were black whilst 85% of their victims were white.[38] As the NF was then contesting the Birmingham Ladywood by-election, such a large march elsewhere was construed by some as an attempt to provoke trouble. 270 policemen were injured (56 hospitalised) and over 200 marchers were injured (78 hospitalised), while an attempt was made by rioters to destroy the local police station.[39] The march saw the first use of riot shields in the UK outside Northern Ireland. The event is often referred to by ‘anti-fascists’ as the Battle of Lewisham in allusion to the earlier Battle of Cable Street against Oswald Mosley[original research?]. In fact, many of those who took part in the riot that day were not members of any ‘anti-fascist’ or ‘anti-racist’ group, but local youths (both black and white).[40]
At the same time, Margaret Thatcher as opposition leader was moving the Tory party back to the right and away from the moderate Heathite stance which had caused some Conservatives to join the NF. Many ex-Tories returned to the fold from the NF or its myriad splinter groups, in particular after her “swamping” remarks on the ITV documentary series World In Action on 30 January 1978:
“… we do not talk about it [immigration] perhaps as much as we should. In my view, that is one thing that is driving some people to the National Front. They do not agree with the objectives of the National Front, but they say that at least they are talking about some of the problems…. If we do not want people to go to extremes… we must show that we are prepared to deal with it. We are a British nation with British characteristics.”[41]
Also Tyndall insisted on using party funds to nominate extra candidates so that the NF would be standing in 303 seats. This was in order to give the impression of growing strength. However, it brought the party to the verge of bankruptcy when all of the deposits were lost. Most candidates were candidates in name only, and did no electioneering.[citation needed].
National Front deputy leader Martin Webster claimed two decades later that the activities of the Anti-Nazi League played a key part in the NF’s collapse at the end of the 1970s, but this claim seems counter-intuitive, for the Anti-Nazi League collapsed early in 1979 amid claims of financial impropriety, with former celebrity supporters such as Brian Clough disowning the organisation. Furthermore, the NF stood their largest number of parliamentary candidates at the 1979 general election only a few months later, and met with far less opposition than in previous elections.[citation needed].
Most damning of all, a full set of minutes of National Front Directorate meetings from late 1979 to the 1986 “Third Way” versus “Flag Group” split, deposited by former NF leader Patrick Harrington in the library of the University of Southampton, revealed that during the party’s post-1979 wilderness years they were in the habit of “tipping off the reds” in the hope of giving their activities greater credibility with the public, through being attended by hordes of angry protestors. This fact was later confirmed by MI5 mole Andy Carmichael, who was West Midlands Regional Organiser for the NF during the 1990s.[42]
Tyndall’s leadership was challenged by Andrew Fountaine after the 1979 debacle. Although Tyndall saw off the challenge, Fountaine and his followers split from the party to form the NF Constitutional Movement. The influential Leicester branch of the NF also split around this time, leading to the formation of the short lived British Democratic Party. In the face of these splits, the party’s Directorate voted to oust Tyndall as Chairman after he had demanded even more powers. He was replaced by Andrew Brons: but the ‘power behind the throne’ was Martin Webster who, somewhat surprisingly, had supported his old ally’s deposition. After failing to win title to the National Front name in the courts, Tyndall went on eventually to form the British National Party.
The party rapidly declined during the 1980s, although it retained some support in the West Midlands and in parts of London (usually centred around Terry Blackham).[43]
The party effectively split into two halves during the 1980s, after it had expelled Martin Webster and his partner Peter Salt. On one side were the Political Soldier ideas of young radicals such as Nick Griffin, Patrick Harrington, Phil Andrews and Derek Holland, who were known as the Official National Front. They had little interest in contesting elections, preferring a ‘revolutionary’ strategy.[44]
The opposition NF Flag Group contained the traditionalists such as Andrew Brons, Ian Anderson, Martin Wingfield, Tina Wingfield, Joe Pearce (initially associated with the Political Soldiers’ faction) and Steve Brady, who ran candidates under the NF banner in the 1987 general election. The Flag Group did some ideological work of their own, and the ideas of Social Credit and Distributism were popular, but the chief preoccupation was still race relations.[45] Some hoped that having two parties within one might help to save the NF from oblivion after 1979. The phrase “Let a thousand initiatives bloom” was coined (meaning that internal diversity should be tolerated) in the hope of re-capturing support, but clashes occurred nevertheless. In the 1989 Vauxhall by-election, Harrington stood as the Official National Front candidate against Ted Budden for the Flag NF, both sides cat-calling at one another during the declaration of the result[citation needed]. By 1990, the Political Soldiers had fallen out with one another, splintering into Griffin’s International Third Position (ITP) and Harrington’s Third Way, leaving the Flag Group under Anderson and Wingfield to continue alone. Griffin’s pamphlet “Attempted Murder”[46] gives a very colourful – if biased and somewhat bitter – overview of this period of the NF’s history.
Around this time, the ‘official’ NF lost much of its traditional English support as a result of its support for black radicals such as Louis Farrakhan.[47] The former supporters either moved to the British National Party (BNP), the rapidly declining British Movement, or to the White Noiseumbrella groupBlood and Honour. Griffin and Holland tried to enlist the financial aid of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, but the idea was rejected once the Libyans found out about the NF’s reputation as fascist (a quarter of Libya’s adult male population was killed by Benito Mussolini‘s troops during World War II).[48]However, the NF received 5,000 copies of Gaddafi’s Green Book, which influenced Andrews to leave the NF to form the Isleworth Community Group, the first of several grass roots groups in English local elections, whereby nominally independent candidates stood under a collective flag of convenience to appear more attractive to voters.[49][50]
An estimate of membership of the National Front in 1989 put adherents of the Flag Group at about 3,000 and of the ‘Political Soldier’ faction at about 600, with a number in between embracing Griffin’sThird Position ideas.[44] Griffin’s own estimate, as stated in a TV documentary first broadcast in 1999, was that in 1990 his International Third Position had fifty to sixty supporters, while Harrington’s Third Way had about a dozen.
In the 1990s, the NF declined as the BNP began to grow. As a result of this, Ian Anderson decided to change the party name and in 1995 re-launched it as the National Democrats. The move proved unpopular. Over half of the members continued with the NF under the reluctant leadership of previous deputy leader John McAuley. He later passed the job on to Tom Holmes. The National Democrats continued to publish the old NF newspaper The Flag for a while. The NF launched a new paper, The Flame, which is still published irregularly.
There has been a re-positioning of the NF’s policy on marches and demonstrations since the expulsion from the party in 2007 of Terry Blackham, the former National Activities Organiser. These have been reduced in favour of electoral campaigning. In January 2010, Tom Holmes resigned the leadership and handed over to Ian Edward.[51]
In February 2010, when the BNP had to change its constitution to allow non-whites into the party because of a High Court decision, the NF claimed to have received over 1000 membership enquiries from BNP members and said that local BNP branches in Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire had discussed switching over to them.[52] Prominent BNP dissidents Chris Jackson and Michael Easter joined the NF in the latter half of 2009[citation needed] while, more recently, the veteran nationalists Richard Edmonds and Tess Culnane have both rejoined the party.
On 14 September 2010, the NF publicity officer, Tom Linden, shared a debate with the Social Democratic and Labour PartyMLA, John Dallat, on BBC Radio Foyle about the support the NF had in Coleraine. This gave the NF a chance to air its views, which resulted in the NF Coleraine organiser, Mark Brown, thanking John Dallat for helping the NF double its support in Coleraine through enquiries and membership.[53]
The National Front has contested local elections since the late 1960s, but only did particularly well in them from 1973, polling as high as 15%. It never won a seat, however.[54] In the 1976 local elections the NF notably polled 27.5% of the vote in Sandwell, West Midlands, as well as over 10,000 votes in some councils.[55][56] The May 1976 local election results were the most impressive for the National Front, with the jewel in the crown being Leicester, where 48 candidates won 14,566 votes, nearly 20% of the total. However, after 1977 the NF vote-share ceased growing and by 1979 had begun to decline.[57]
During the 1980s and early 1990s the National Front only fielded a handful of candidates for local elections, but it has increased this to 19 since 2010.[33]
Although the National Front has never won a council seat in an election, it did gain a seat on 3 May 2007 when candidate Simon Deacon was elected unopposed to MarkyateParish council, near St Albans (there were ten vacancies but only nine candidates). However, Cllr Deacon soon defected to the British National Party, after becoming disillusioned with the direction of the NF.[58]
In March 2010 the NF gained its first ever councillor in Rotherham: John Gamble, who was originally in the BNP and then the England First Party (EFP).[59] However, not long afterwards he was expelled. Later the same year, a parish councillor from Harrogate, Sam Clayton, defected from the BNP to the NF.[60] However, on 29 November 2010, it was revealed that Clayton had resigned as parish councillor for Bilton in Ainsty with Bickerton ward.[61] As of mid-2011 the National Front had one councillor, who represented Langley Hill Ward on Langley Parish Council.[62] However, in September 2011 it lost its councillor after they failed to complete the necessary paper-work.[63]
In the 2008 London Assembly election held on 1 May, the National Front stood five candidates, saving two deposits – Paul Winnett of the NF polled 11,288 votes (5.56% of those cast) in the Bexley and Bromley constituency. In the Greenwich and Lewisham constituency, Tess Culnane polled 8,509 votes (5.79% of those cast) coming ahead of the UK Independence Party.
The National Front has contested general elections since 1970.
The NF’s most significant success in a parliamentary by-election was in the 1973 West Bromwich by-election: the NF candidate finished third on a high 16%, and saved his deposit for the only time in NF by-election history. This result was largely due to the candidate Martin Webster‘s own adopted ‘chummy’ persona for the campaign as “Big Mart”.
In the 1979 general election the National Front fielded a record 303 candidates, polling 191,719 votes but saving no deposits. This plunged the party into financial difficulties. This is considered to be a major factor in the decline of the NF.[by whom?]
The National Front fielded 60 candidates in the 1983 general election and received 27,065 votes. It saved no deposits, the average vote being less than 1% in each contested constituency. In 1987, the NF was split and only stood one candidate, in Bristol East, polling 286 votes (0.6%).
Since 1992, the National Front has never fielded more than nineteen candidates in a British general election (as few as five in 2001). None has saved their deposit, with their average percentage share of the vote being around 1%. However, in Rochdale during the 2010 general election, the NF candidate, Chris Jackson, polled 4.9% (2,236 votes), coming within a whisker of saving his deposit.[64]
The National Front stood for the first time ever in the Scottish Parliament general election, 2011, fielding six candidates – one for the North East region and five for the constituencies.[65] It gained 1,515 votes (0.08%) for the constituencies nationwide and 640 votes (0.2%) for the North East region. It failed to win any seats or save any deposits.
Combat 18 (C18) is a violent neo-Nazi organisation associated with Blood and Honour. It originated in the United Kingdom, but has since spread to other countries. Members of Combat 18 have been suspected in numerous deaths of immigrants, non-whites, and other C18 members.[citation needed] The 18 in its name is derived from the initials of Adolf Hitler: A and H are the first and eighth letters of the Latin alphabet. Combat 18 members are barred from joining theBritish Prison Service[1] and police.[2]
Combat 18 was formed in early 1992 by Charlie Sargent.[3] C18 soon attracted national attention for threats of violence against immigrants, members of ethnic minorities and leftists.[4] In 1992, it started publishing Redwatch magazine, which contained photographs, names and addresses of political opponents. Combat 18 is an openly neo-Nazi group that is devoted to violence and is hostile to electoral politics, and for this reason Sargent split decisively from the BNP in 1993.[5]
Sargent had split with his former C18 colleagues over allegations that he was an informer for British security services. The rival faction, led by Wilf “The Beast” Browning wanted Sargent to return to them the C18 membership list, for which they were to return his plastering tools and £1,000. However such was the animosity and fear between them that a mutually acceptable go-between, 28 year-old C18 member, “Catford Chris” Castle, was driven to Sargent’s mobile home in Harlow, Essex, by Browning, who waited in the car, whilst Castle went to visit Sargent. He was met at the door by Charlie Sargent and his political associate, Martin Cross. Cross plunged a nine-inch (22 cm) blade into Castle’s back. Browning took Castle to hospital in a taxi, but doctors were unable to save him and he died shortly after arriving in hospital.
Despite his attempting to implicate Browning, Sargent was convicted of murder at ChelmsfordCrown Court the following year. He and Cross were sentenced to life imprisonment and remain in prison to this day.[6]
Between 1998 and 2000, dozens of Combat 18 members in the UK were arrested on various charges during dawn raids by the police. These raids were part of several operations conducted by Scotland Yard in co-operation with MI5. Those arrested included Steve Sargent (brother of Charlie Sargent), David Myatt and two serving British soldiers, Darren Theron (Parachute Regiment) and Carl Wilson.[7]One of those whose house was raided was Adrian Marsden, who later became a councillor for the British National Party (BNP).[8] Several of those arrested were later imprisoned, including Andrew Frain (seven years) and Jason Marriner (six years).
Some journalists believed that the White Wolves are a C18 splinter group, alleging that the group had been set up by Del O’Connor, the former second-in-command of C18 and member of SkrewdriverSecurity.[9] The document issued by the White Wolves announcing their formation has been attributed to David Myatt, whose Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution allegedly inspired nailbomber David Copeland, who was jailed for life in 2000 after being found guilty of causing a series of bombings in April 1999 that killed three people and injured many others.
A group calling itself the Racial Volunteer Force split from C18 in 2002, although it has retained close links to its parent organization.[10] On October 28, 2003, German police officers conducted raids on 50 properties in Kiel and Flensburg that were believed to be linked to German supporters of the group.[11] The Anti-Defamation League says there are Combat 18 chapters in Illinois, Florida andTexas.[12] On 6 September 2006, the Belgian police arrested 20 members of Combat 18 Flanders. Fourteen of them were soldiers in the Belgian army. In July 2008, C18 was painted on St. Mary’s Oratory in County Londonderry.[13] In November 2008, BNP chairman Nick Griffin claimed that C18 was an “effectively fictitious” and “police-run” organisation.[14]
Racist attacks on immigrants continue from members of C18.[16] Weapons, ammunition and explosives have been seized by police in the UK and almost every country in which C18 is active.
In late 2010 five members of Combat 18 Australia were charged over an attack on a Mosque in Perth, Western Australia. Several rounds were fired from a high powered rifle into the dome of the Canning Turkish Islamic Mosque, causing over $15,000 damage.
Members of the organisation include known football hooligans. The most high profile incident involving Combat 18 members in football came on 15 February 1995, when violence broke out in the stands at Lansdowne Road in the international friendly between the Republic of Ireland and England. There was also sectarian motivated taunting of “No Surrender To The IRA” aimed at Irish fans.[17]
NOTORIOUS BRITISH NEO-NAZI SKINHEAD NICKY CRANE SHOCKS CLOSE FRIEND IAN STUART DONALDSON – FRONTMAN OF FAR RIGHT SKINHEAD BAND – SKREWDRIVER – REVEALING THAT HE IS GAY .
SHORTLY AFTER COMING OUT NICKY CRANE DIES FROM AN AIDS RELATED ILLNESS IN DECEMBER 1993
PLEASE DO BE AWARE THAT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , IT’S OWNER , OR ANY OF IT’S STAFF HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAVE NO AFFILIATION , CONNECTION OR INVOLVEMENT WITH ANY EXTREMIST , POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS WHATSOEVER …… WE SIMPLY EXHIBIT AND TOUCH UPON A GREAT MANY POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE COVER IN THE WAY WE CHOOSE TO DO HERE. …. “IT’S ALL HISTORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE”….EVEN IF ON OCCASIONS, SENSITIVE , THOUGHT PROVOKING SUBJECT MATTERS THAT INCITE STRONG DEBATE .
Nicky Crane caused the British Neo-Nazi Skinheads and British Movement considerable embarrassment Crane was for some time a Nazi poster boy and very prominent in the Nazi movement in the 1980s. He was a member of the fascist British Movement Leader Guard and had something of a fearsome reputation on the cobbles. He was mates with Ian Stuart Donaldson of Skrewdriver etc. and did the security for their gigs. Crane was featured on the cover of one of the Oi! albums, looking very butch, much to the embarrassment of Gary Bushell who was promoting the music and was desperate to convince people that Oi! wasn’t involved with organised fascism. This was despite the fact that Gary Hitchcock of Combat 18 was the manager of the Oi band the 4 Skins. The 4 Skins played in Southall, a predominantly Asian area (and much recommended for cheap and delicious restaurants), which resulted in a mini-riot and the boozer being torched.
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Nicky Crane gained notoriety by being a bodyguard/compatriot of Skrewdriver, the infamous racist punk band, and as founder of Blood and Honour, the British racist skinhead movement alleged by many to be enforcers for the British National Party, a far right British political party dedicated to keep Britain the same color as milk.
Nicky Crane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nicola Vincenzio “Nicky” Crane (21 May 1958 – 8 December 1993) was a Britishneo-Nazi skinhead activist. He came out as gay before dying from an AIDS-related illness in 1993. Max Schaefer‘s 2010 novel Children of the Sun depicts an aspiring screenwriter’s search to find out about who was the “real” Nicky Crane.
Nicky Crane joined the British Movement (BM) in the late 1970s, and by 1980, he had become the BM organiser for Kent. In 1980, he attacked ablack family at a bus stop near Liverpool Street station. For this act, he was convicted of unlawfully fighting and making an affray, and given a suspended sentence. Crane appeared on several T-shirts and calendars produced by the Aldgate skinhead shop The Last Resort during the 1980s. In 1981, he appeared on the cover of the Oi! compilation album Strength Thru Oi! (due to his skinhead appearance, not his racist views), with hisNazi tattoos partially airbrushed out.[1]
Also in 1981, he was convicted and jailed for four years for his role in a BM-organised attack on a group of black youths arriving on a train atWoolwich Arsenal railway station in 1980. He once led an attack on an anti-racist concert being held in Jubilee Gardens in London. Pictures of him storming the stage where singer Hank Wangford was performing appeared in national newspapers; although Crane was clearly identifiable, no action was taken. Released from jail in 1984, Crane soon began providing security for the white power skinhead band Skrewdriver, and remained associated with the band and its leader, Ian Stuart Donaldson, for the rest of the decade, designing two of the band’s album covers and writing the lyrics for the song “Justice” on the LP Hail the New Dawn. He was jailed again in 1986 for six months following a fight on an Underground train. In 1987, he was instrumental in setting up the neo-Nazi network Blood and Honour with Donaldson.
Crane was leading a double life as a homosexual, even serving as a steward at the London gay pride march in 1986. He was a regular at Londongay clubs such as Heaven, Bolts and the Bell pub.[2] At various times, Crane had worked as a bin man, bicycle courier, and a doorman at an S&Mclub. He worked for the protection agency Gentle Touch, and was able to shrug off any connection with the London gay scene as just part of his security work.[3] He also appeared in the Psychic TVvideo for Unclean, and in amateur gay porn films while still a neo-Nazi activist.[4] In July 1992, Crane admitted his homosexuality on the Channel 4 programme Out. On the programme, Crane and various other homosexuals explained why they were attracted to the skinhead scene. He was immediately disowned by his Nazi associates, including Ian Stuart Donaldson, who said he felt “betrayed”. The same month, the UK newspaper The Sun ran an article on him entitled Nazi Nick is a Panzi, and included a picture of Crane with his face snarling at camera, head shaved bald, braces worn over his bare torso, faded jeans, white-laced boots and brandishing an axe. Some 18 months later, Crane had died from an AIDS-related illness.
